Summary

Daughter of Mary (Polly) Chamberlain (1788-1872) and her first husband, Solomon Massengill (1782-1814), of Grainger Co. Narcissa F. Massengill first married Jas. Bridgeman. She later abandoned him to become the wife of Dr. William Bolen Whiteside, a brother of Chattanooga entrepreneur Jas. Anderson Whiteside, the husband of her sister, Mary J. Massengill Whiteside. Narcissa was originally interred in the Chamberlain family cemetery in May Spring, Grainger Co.; her body was among those removed in the early 1940s to Martha Sunderland Cemetery, in Hamblen Co., in order to make way for the creation of Cherokee Lake.

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"Narcissa Frances, born 1814, in Grainger County, Tenn., was the youngest child of Solomon and Mary (Chamberlain) Massengill. She is said to have been a strikingly beautiful young girl of very forceful character, which in later life developed some strange peculiarities, which awed the younger generation of her nieces and nephews.

"She married, first, James Bridgeman, at Pikeville, Tenn., with whom she lived about a month.

"Mrs. Narcissa Bridgeman spent much of her time with her sister, Mrs. James A. Whiteside, in Chattanooga, Tenn. After the death of her husband, she married Dr. Wm. Bolin Whiteside, a brother of Col. James A. Whiteside.

"They made their home on Lookout Mountain, until the gold fever reached East Tennessee. In 1849, Uncle Bolin and 'Aunt Nar' went to California. They set out from Chattanooga with a train load of slaves, and a herd of cattle. Eight months they spent crossing the plains, and attacks from hostile Indians added excitement to the trip.

"On arrival at San Francisco, 'Aunt Nar' earned her living by making butter, as several of the cows survived the trying ordeal of crossing the continent.

"After a few months in the West, they returned home by boat, landing at New Orleans--sadder, wiser, and considerably poorer."